A Washington think tank and expert on Russian propaganda, Stradner is also a member of NAFO — or the North Atlantic Fellas Organization — an informal alliance of Internet culture warriors, national security experts and ordinary Twitter users who weaponize memes, viral videos and, yes . , dog photos to counter Russian online disinformation. “I see myself as a political propagandist for NAFO,” said Stradner, an adviser to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a conservative think tank. “So far, Russia has been the only one willing to play a dirty game.” In a tweet, she let her 26,000 followers know who they could turn to if they needed to deal with an insult from “Vatniks” – a Russian euphemism for Kremlin sympathizers. The group — which includes ordinary foot soldiers like Stradner, as well as political heavyweights like U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, former Estonian President Toomas Hedrik Ilves and, as of this week, Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov — uses as a weapon of her choice is a poorly-drawn picture of the Shiba Inu, the Japanese dog breed that became an internet sensation a decade ago and is referred to as a “dogge” in internet culture. “Friends” of NAFO, as they prefer to be called, integrate their Twitter accounts with the Shiba Inu avatar. They overlay the image on a TikTok-style video of Ukrainian troops dancing to music. They pile on Russian propaganda through coordinated social media attacks based on humor — it’s hard to take a bad dog plan seriously — to mock the Kremlin and undermine its online messaging. Whenever a NAFO guy spots a Russian official or supporter posting a pro-Kremlin view on Twitter, for example, he can use the hashtag #Article5 — a nod to the part of the NATO treaty that calls for collective defense — to bombard these accounts with support for Ukraine. They have also flooded Twitter with viral memes attacking Russian President Vladimir Putin and videos mocking the Kremlin’s war effort. On average, there are now more than 5,000 NAFO-related Twitter posts, up from a handful in May, according to an analysis shared with POLITICO by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a think tank that tracks online activity. Coordinated suspension shit is finally being deployed in the service of Kiev’s war effort. NAFO was launched in late May as an online fundraising tool for Ukrainian troops. Anyone who donates money via PayPal (NAFO never touches real cash) to groups like the Georgian Legion, a military unit created immediately after Russia invaded Crimea in 2014, can request the group for their own doge avatar. “This is something we’ve just never seen before,” said Emma Salisbury, a doctoral candidate at Birkbeck University of London who studies Western military tactics. “This organization has just emerged from a very deep, but very specialized, part of the Internet.” Salisbury now decides what type of Shiba Inu avatar she wants before donating. Her preferred choice: “Warrior goddess,” she said.
Gun culture meme
Even replying to a Twitter account whose avatar is “doge” can make a Russian diplomat look foolish | Matt Cardy/Getty Images To delve into NAFO is to witness how online communities from the Islamic State to the far-right boogaloo movement and this ragtag band of online warriors have weaponized internet culture. With the rise of social media, would-be political groups have sought to capitalize on cultural iconography once reserved for online chat rooms in pursuit of recruitment, attention and impact. Jihadists produce slick YouTube clips depicting battles in the Middle East. Western extremists use the ‘Pepe the Frog’ meme to punctuate their online messages. For NAFO, it’s the humble avatar Shiba Inu — a goofy dog breed popularized by Tesla CEO and would-be internet troll Elon Musk and his support of Dogecoin, the cryptocurrency. As the community grew, its members began copying online tactics straight from the Kremlin’s disinformation playbook, sprinkling in a heavy dose of online culture and humor to undermine Russian propaganda. The work is obviously appreciated. On Tuesday, Ukraine’s Defense Minister Reznikov tweeted a “personal greeting to #NAFOfellas” and changed his profile picture to a custom-made avatar of a doge, dressed in a suit, holding a Ukrainian shield and standing in front of a bombed-out bridge. “I would like to thank every single person behind the Shiba Inu cartoon. Your donations to support our defenders, your fight against disinformation are invaluable,” Reznikov wrote. “NAFO expansion is non-negotiable!” For Jamie Cohen, an Internet culture specialist at the City University of New York, NAFO has tapped into the social media culture that is becoming part of people’s everyday lives. Where Russian propaganda remains tightly controlled through the Kremlin-backed media, this group has won the world over because anyone can join, its focus is on humor, and it gives people a positive way to show their support for Ukraine. “This is a real tactical event against a nation state,” he said. “They have a very specific tactic. It’s very simple to do and they have a mascot.”
NAFO 1, Russia 0
Russian influencers have struggled to respond to poorly drawn Shiba Inu memes, YouTube-style viral videos and the power of ordinary social media users debunking Kremlin talking points. Even replying to a Twitter account whose avatar is “doge” can make a Russian diplomat look foolish. Essentially, NAFO can swim in online waters that governments would struggle to enter. Five Western national security officials, nearly all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, welcomed the rise of such pro-Ukraine warriors online. In contrast to the usually colorless official efforts to dispel the Kremlin’s lies, NAFO has tapped into widespread public anger against Russia through references to popular culture and laughter, they added. “Using humor to counter disinformation is a brilliant strategy,” said Jakub Kalenský, senior analyst at the European Center of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats, a joint initiative between NATO countries and the European Union. “One inspiration we should take is that it is possible to fight back. It really is possible to do something – so stop being lazy and trying to make excuses.” One Russian official who has become involved with NAFO is Mikhail Ulyanov, Moscow’s ambassador to international organizations in Vienna and a well-known peddler of Kremlin propaganda through his 30,000 Twitter followers. Since the Kremlin stepped up its attack in February, the Russian diplomat has accused the United States of creating a “ministry of truth”, chided social media users for peddling “fake news” and claimed that Russia invaded Ukraine only as response to Kiev’s aggression. This last statement caught the attention of NAFO. When someone in the movement accused Ulyanov of rewriting history, the Russian responded with a line he would later regret: “You said that nonsense. Not me.” After accumulating more friends, his message became a meme, which was quickly emblazoned on NAFO mugs and T-shirts. Ulyanov first accused his detractors on Twitter of being bots, then went offline for a week after NAFO friends bombarded his social media account.He later said the social media detox was because he was on vacation. “This is a team that has done something. It’s a social media force against Russian propagandists,” said Benjamin Tallis, a senior fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank in Berlin, who secured his own “dogey” avatar after donating to Ukrainian causes. “They could take Ulyanov offline in a week.” Matthew, a former US Marine who uses Twitter @iAmTheWarax and is one of NAFO’s top accounts, is amazed at how far the movement has come since he and other early adopters started posting “dogma” memes early on full text of Putin. invasion of Ukraine. He helps out by running the online forum used to coordinate avatar requests, but tries to keep his involvement separate from his offline life (and declined to give his last name for security reasons). “I thought it was really funny, just the pictures of the little dogs, but also the way it was used to shit on Russian government officials,” he said. “One of the funniest things about the friend character is that if you tweet at one of these Russian government accounts or the sycophants and they reply, now they’re dealing with a cartoon dog.” As alleged Russian interference remains a bogeyman ahead of a series of Western elections between now and 2024, the US military veteran says NAFO is a reminder that Moscow is not the disinformation jihadist many believe it to be. If the Kremlin can’t handle a disorganized mob of “dogmatic” social media accounts, he adds, how can its propaganda machine be taken seriously?
Full time Fella
Camille eats, drinks and breathes NAFO. The 27-year-old Pole (whose last name POLITICO is withholding for security reasons) wakes up at 5 a.m., opens his Twitter account, creates Shiba Inu avatars, sells NAFO merchandise — everything from dog-inspired T-shirts and mugs to sweatshirts and badges — and coordinating an online movement that started by accident. “I never expected to be where I am today,” he said after posting NAFO’s first tweet in late May as part of a fundraising effort for the Georgia Legion. He began flooding Twitter with doge memes, combining them into war shots to mock the Russian military and praise Ukrainian soldiers. When others started donating too, they started messaging him on the social media platform with requests for…
title: “Shit Sharing Twitter Trolling Dog Growing Social Media Army Is Taking On Putin One Meme At A Time Politico Klmat” ShowToc: true date: “2022-10-30” author: “Mary White”
A Washington think tank and expert on Russian propaganda, Stradner is also a member of NAFO — or the North Atlantic Fellas Organization — an informal alliance of Internet culture warriors, national security experts and ordinary Twitter users who weaponize memes, viral videos and, yes . , dog photos to counter Russian online disinformation. “I see myself as a political propagandist for NAFO,” said Stradner, an adviser to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a conservative think tank. “So far, Russia has been the only one willing to play a dirty game.” In a tweet, she let her 26,000 followers know who they could turn to if they needed to deal with an insult from “Vatniks” – a Russian euphemism for Kremlin sympathizers. The group — which includes ordinary foot soldiers like Stradner, as well as political heavyweights like U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, former Estonian President Toomas Hedrik Ilves and, as of this week, Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov — uses as a weapon of her choice is a poorly-drawn picture of the Shiba Inu, the Japanese dog breed that became an internet sensation a decade ago and is referred to as a “dogge” in internet culture. “Friends” of NAFO, as they prefer to be called, integrate their Twitter accounts with the Shiba Inu avatar. They overlay the image on a TikTok-style video of Ukrainian troops dancing to music. They pile on Russian propaganda through coordinated social media attacks based on humor — it’s hard to take a bad dog plan seriously — to mock the Kremlin and undermine its online messaging. Whenever a NAFO guy spots a Russian official or supporter posting a pro-Kremlin view on Twitter, for example, he can use the hashtag #Article5 — a nod to the part of the NATO treaty that calls for collective defense — to bombard these accounts with support for Ukraine. They have also flooded Twitter with viral memes attacking Russian President Vladimir Putin and videos mocking the Kremlin’s war effort. On average, there are now more than 5,000 NAFO-related Twitter posts, up from a handful in May, according to an analysis shared with POLITICO by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a think tank that tracks online activity. Coordinated suspension shit is finally being deployed in the service of Kiev’s war effort. NAFO was launched in late May as an online fundraising tool for Ukrainian troops. Anyone who donates money via PayPal (NAFO never touches real cash) to groups like the Georgian Legion, a military unit created immediately after Russia invaded Crimea in 2014, can request the group for their own doge avatar. “This is something we’ve just never seen before,” said Emma Salisbury, a doctoral candidate at Birkbeck University of London who studies Western military tactics. “This organization has just emerged from a very deep, but very specialized, part of the Internet.” Salisbury now decides what type of Shiba Inu avatar she wants before donating. Her preferred choice: “Warrior goddess,” she said.
Gun culture meme
Even replying to a Twitter account whose avatar is “doge” can make a Russian diplomat look foolish | Matt Cardy/Getty Images To delve into NAFO is to witness how online communities from the Islamic State to the far-right boogaloo movement and this ragtag band of online warriors have weaponized internet culture. With the rise of social media, would-be political groups have sought to capitalize on cultural iconography once reserved for online chat rooms in pursuit of recruitment, attention and impact. Jihadists produce slick YouTube clips depicting battles in the Middle East. Western extremists use the ‘Pepe the Frog’ meme to punctuate their online messages. For NAFO, it’s the humble avatar Shiba Inu — a goofy dog breed popularized by Tesla CEO and would-be internet troll Elon Musk and his support of Dogecoin, the cryptocurrency. As the community grew, its members began copying online tactics straight from the Kremlin’s disinformation playbook, sprinkling in a heavy dose of online culture and humor to undermine Russian propaganda. The work is obviously appreciated. On Tuesday, Ukraine’s Defense Minister Reznikov tweeted a “personal greeting to #NAFOfellas” and changed his profile picture to a custom-made avatar of a doge, dressed in a suit, holding a Ukrainian shield and standing in front of a bombed-out bridge. “I would like to thank every single person behind the Shiba Inu cartoon. Your donations to support our defenders, your fight against disinformation are invaluable,” Reznikov wrote. “NAFO expansion is non-negotiable!” For Jamie Cohen, an Internet culture specialist at the City University of New York, NAFO has tapped into the social media culture that is becoming part of people’s everyday lives. Where Russian propaganda remains tightly controlled through the Kremlin-backed media, this group has won the world over because anyone can join, its focus is on humor, and it gives people a positive way to show their support for Ukraine. “This is a real tactical event against a nation state,” he said. “They have a very specific tactic. It’s very simple to do and they have a mascot.”
NAFO 1, Russia 0
Russian influencers have struggled to respond to poorly drawn Shiba Inu memes, YouTube-style viral videos and the power of ordinary social media users debunking Kremlin talking points. Even replying to a Twitter account whose avatar is “doge” can make a Russian diplomat look foolish. Essentially, NAFO can swim in online waters that governments would struggle to enter. Five Western national security officials, nearly all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, welcomed the rise of such pro-Ukraine warriors online. In contrast to the usually colorless official efforts to dispel the Kremlin’s lies, NAFO has tapped into widespread public anger against Russia through references to popular culture and laughter, they added. “Using humor to counter disinformation is a brilliant strategy,” said Jakub Kalenský, senior analyst at the European Center of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats, a joint initiative between NATO countries and the European Union. “One inspiration we should take is that it is possible to fight back. It really is possible to do something – so stop being lazy and trying to make excuses.” One Russian official who has become involved with NAFO is Mikhail Ulyanov, Moscow’s ambassador to international organizations in Vienna and a well-known peddler of Kremlin propaganda through his 30,000 Twitter followers. Since the Kremlin stepped up its attack in February, the Russian diplomat has accused the United States of creating a “ministry of truth”, chided social media users for peddling “fake news” and claimed that Russia invaded Ukraine only as response to Kiev’s aggression. This last statement caught the attention of NAFO. When someone in the movement accused Ulyanov of rewriting history, the Russian responded with a line he would later regret: “You said that nonsense. Not me.” After accumulating more friends, his message became a meme, which was quickly emblazoned on NAFO mugs and T-shirts. Ulyanov first accused his detractors on Twitter of being bots, then went offline for a week after NAFO friends bombarded his social media account.He later said the social media detox was because he was on vacation. “This is a team that has done something. It’s a social media force against Russian propagandists,” said Benjamin Tallis, a senior fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank in Berlin, who secured his own “dogey” avatar after donating to Ukrainian causes. “They could take Ulyanov offline in a week.” Matthew, a former US Marine who uses Twitter @iAmTheWarax and is one of NAFO’s top accounts, is amazed at how far the movement has come since he and other early adopters started posting “dogma” memes early on full text of Putin. invasion of Ukraine. He helps out by running the online forum used to coordinate avatar requests, but tries to keep his involvement separate from his offline life (and declined to give his last name for security reasons). “I thought it was really funny, just the pictures of the little dogs, but also the way it was used to shit on Russian government officials,” he said. “One of the funniest things about the friend character is that if you tweet at one of these Russian government accounts or the sycophants and they reply, now they’re dealing with a cartoon dog.” As alleged Russian interference remains a bogeyman ahead of a series of Western elections between now and 2024, the US military veteran says NAFO is a reminder that Moscow is not the disinformation jihadist many believe it to be. If the Kremlin can’t handle a disorganized mob of “dogmatic” social media accounts, he adds, how can its propaganda machine be taken seriously?
Full time Fella
Camille eats, drinks and breathes NAFO. The 27-year-old Pole (whose last name POLITICO is withholding for security reasons) wakes up at 5 a.m., opens his Twitter account, creates Shiba Inu avatars, sells NAFO merchandise — everything from dog-inspired T-shirts and mugs to sweatshirts and badges — and coordinating an online movement that started by accident. “I never expected to be where I am today,” he said after posting NAFO’s first tweet in late May as part of a fundraising effort for the Georgia Legion. He began flooding Twitter with doge memes, combining them into war shots to mock the Russian military and praise Ukrainian soldiers. When others started donating too, they started messaging him on the social media platform with requests for…
title: “Shit Sharing Twitter Trolling Dog Growing Social Media Army Is Taking On Putin One Meme At A Time Politico Klmat” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-10” author: “Adrian Renteria”
A Washington think tank and expert on Russian propaganda, Stradner is also a member of NAFO — or the North Atlantic Fellas Organization — an informal alliance of Internet culture warriors, national security experts and ordinary Twitter users who weaponize memes, viral videos and, yes . , dog photos to counter Russian online disinformation. “I see myself as a political propagandist for NAFO,” said Stradner, an adviser to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a conservative think tank. “So far, Russia has been the only one willing to play a dirty game.” In a tweet, she let her 26,000 followers know who they could turn to if they needed to deal with an insult from “Vatniks” – a Russian euphemism for Kremlin sympathizers. The group — which includes ordinary foot soldiers like Stradner, as well as political heavyweights like U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, former Estonian President Toomas Hedrik Ilves and, as of this week, Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov — uses as a weapon of her choice is a poorly-drawn picture of the Shiba Inu, the Japanese dog breed that became an internet sensation a decade ago and is referred to as a “dogge” in internet culture. “Friends” of NAFO, as they prefer to be called, integrate their Twitter accounts with the Shiba Inu avatar. They overlay the image on a TikTok-style video of Ukrainian troops dancing to music. They pile on Russian propaganda through coordinated social media attacks based on humor — it’s hard to take a bad dog plan seriously — to mock the Kremlin and undermine its online messaging. Whenever a NAFO guy spots a Russian official or supporter posting a pro-Kremlin view on Twitter, for example, he can use the hashtag #Article5 — a nod to the part of the NATO treaty that calls for collective defense — to bombard these accounts with support for Ukraine. They have also flooded Twitter with viral memes attacking Russian President Vladimir Putin and videos mocking the Kremlin’s war effort. On average, there are now more than 5,000 NAFO-related Twitter posts, up from a handful in May, according to an analysis shared with POLITICO by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a think tank that tracks online activity. Coordinated suspension shit is finally being deployed in the service of Kiev’s war effort. NAFO was launched in late May as an online fundraising tool for Ukrainian troops. Anyone who donates money via PayPal (NAFO never touches real cash) to groups like the Georgian Legion, a military unit created immediately after Russia invaded Crimea in 2014, can request the group for their own doge avatar. “This is something we’ve just never seen before,” said Emma Salisbury, a doctoral candidate at Birkbeck University of London who studies Western military tactics. “This organization has just emerged from a very deep, but very specialized, part of the Internet.” Salisbury now decides what type of Shiba Inu avatar she wants before donating. Her preferred choice: “Warrior goddess,” she said.
Gun culture meme
Even replying to a Twitter account whose avatar is “doge” can make a Russian diplomat look foolish | Matt Cardy/Getty Images To delve into NAFO is to witness how online communities from the Islamic State to the far-right boogaloo movement and this ragtag band of online warriors have weaponized internet culture. With the rise of social media, would-be political groups have sought to capitalize on cultural iconography once reserved for online chat rooms in pursuit of recruitment, attention and impact. Jihadists produce slick YouTube clips depicting battles in the Middle East. Western extremists use the ‘Pepe the Frog’ meme to punctuate their online messages. For NAFO, it’s the humble avatar Shiba Inu — a goofy dog breed popularized by Tesla CEO and would-be internet troll Elon Musk and his support of Dogecoin, the cryptocurrency. As the community grew, its members began copying online tactics straight from the Kremlin’s disinformation playbook, sprinkling in a heavy dose of online culture and humor to undermine Russian propaganda. The work is obviously appreciated. On Tuesday, Ukraine’s Defense Minister Reznikov tweeted a “personal greeting to #NAFOfellas” and changed his profile picture to a custom-made avatar of a doge, dressed in a suit, holding a Ukrainian shield and standing in front of a bombed-out bridge. “I would like to thank every single person behind the Shiba Inu cartoon. Your donations to support our defenders, your fight against disinformation are invaluable,” Reznikov wrote. “NAFO expansion is non-negotiable!” For Jamie Cohen, an Internet culture specialist at the City University of New York, NAFO has tapped into the social media culture that is becoming part of people’s everyday lives. Where Russian propaganda remains tightly controlled through the Kremlin-backed media, this group has won the world over because anyone can join, its focus is on humor, and it gives people a positive way to show their support for Ukraine. “This is a real tactical event against a nation state,” he said. “They have a very specific tactic. It’s very simple to do and they have a mascot.”
NAFO 1, Russia 0
Russian influencers have struggled to respond to poorly drawn Shiba Inu memes, YouTube-style viral videos and the power of ordinary social media users debunking Kremlin talking points. Even replying to a Twitter account whose avatar is “doge” can make a Russian diplomat look foolish. Essentially, NAFO can swim in online waters that governments would struggle to enter. Five Western national security officials, nearly all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, welcomed the rise of such pro-Ukraine warriors online. In contrast to the usually colorless official efforts to dispel the Kremlin’s lies, NAFO has tapped into widespread public anger against Russia through references to popular culture and laughter, they added. “Using humor to counter disinformation is a brilliant strategy,” said Jakub Kalenský, senior analyst at the European Center of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats, a joint initiative between NATO countries and the European Union. “One inspiration we should take is that it is possible to fight back. It really is possible to do something – so stop being lazy and trying to make excuses.” One Russian official who has become involved with NAFO is Mikhail Ulyanov, Moscow’s ambassador to international organizations in Vienna and a well-known peddler of Kremlin propaganda through his 30,000 Twitter followers. Since the Kremlin stepped up its attack in February, the Russian diplomat has accused the United States of creating a “ministry of truth”, chided social media users for peddling “fake news” and claimed that Russia invaded Ukraine only as response to Kiev’s aggression. This last statement caught the attention of NAFO. When someone in the movement accused Ulyanov of rewriting history, the Russian responded with a line he would later regret: “You said that nonsense. Not me.” After accumulating more friends, his message became a meme, which was quickly emblazoned on NAFO mugs and T-shirts. Ulyanov first accused his detractors on Twitter of being bots, then went offline for a week after NAFO friends bombarded his social media account.He later said the social media detox was because he was on vacation. “This is a team that has done something. It’s a social media force against Russian propagandists,” said Benjamin Tallis, a senior fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank in Berlin, who secured his own “dogey” avatar after donating to Ukrainian causes. “They could take Ulyanov offline in a week.” Matthew, a former US Marine who uses Twitter @iAmTheWarax and is one of NAFO’s top accounts, is amazed at how far the movement has come since he and other early adopters started posting “dogma” memes early on full text of Putin. invasion of Ukraine. He helps out by running the online forum used to coordinate avatar requests, but tries to keep his involvement separate from his offline life (and declined to give his last name for security reasons). “I thought it was really funny, just the pictures of the little dogs, but also the way it was used to shit on Russian government officials,” he said. “One of the funniest things about the friend character is that if you tweet at one of these Russian government accounts or the sycophants and they reply, now they’re dealing with a cartoon dog.” As alleged Russian interference remains a bogeyman ahead of a series of Western elections between now and 2024, the US military veteran says NAFO is a reminder that Moscow is not the disinformation jihadist many believe it to be. If the Kremlin can’t handle a disorganized mob of “dogmatic” social media accounts, he adds, how can its propaganda machine be taken seriously?
Full time Fella
Camille eats, drinks and breathes NAFO. The 27-year-old Pole (whose last name POLITICO is withholding for security reasons) wakes up at 5 a.m., opens his Twitter account, creates Shiba Inu avatars, sells NAFO merchandise — everything from dog-inspired T-shirts and mugs to sweatshirts and badges — and coordinating an online movement that started by accident. “I never expected to be where I am today,” he said after posting NAFO’s first tweet in late May as part of a fundraising effort for the Georgia Legion. He began flooding Twitter with doge memes, combining them into war shots to mock the Russian military and praise Ukrainian soldiers. When others started donating too, they started messaging him on the social media platform with requests for…
title: “Shit Sharing Twitter Trolling Dog Growing Social Media Army Is Taking On Putin One Meme At A Time Politico Klmat” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-06” author: “Ethel Rogriguez”
A Washington think tank and expert on Russian propaganda, Stradner is also a member of NAFO — or the North Atlantic Fellas Organization — an informal alliance of Internet culture warriors, national security experts and ordinary Twitter users who weaponize memes, viral videos and, yes . , dog photos to counter Russian online disinformation. “I see myself as a political propagandist for NAFO,” said Stradner, an adviser to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a conservative think tank. “So far, Russia has been the only one willing to play a dirty game.” In a tweet, she let her 26,000 followers know who they could turn to if they needed to deal with an insult from “Vatniks” – a Russian euphemism for Kremlin sympathizers. The group — which includes ordinary foot soldiers like Stradner, as well as political heavyweights like U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, former Estonian President Toomas Hedrik Ilves and, as of this week, Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov — uses as a weapon of her choice is a poorly-drawn picture of the Shiba Inu, the Japanese dog breed that became an internet sensation a decade ago and is referred to as a “dogge” in internet culture. “Friends” of NAFO, as they prefer to be called, integrate their Twitter accounts with the Shiba Inu avatar. They overlay the image on a TikTok-style video of Ukrainian troops dancing to music. They pile on Russian propaganda through coordinated social media attacks based on humor — it’s hard to take a bad dog plan seriously — to mock the Kremlin and undermine its online messaging. Whenever a NAFO guy spots a Russian official or supporter posting a pro-Kremlin view on Twitter, for example, he can use the hashtag #Article5 — a nod to the part of the NATO treaty that calls for collective defense — to bombard these accounts with support for Ukraine. They have also flooded Twitter with viral memes attacking Russian President Vladimir Putin and videos mocking the Kremlin’s war effort. On average, there are now more than 5,000 NAFO-related Twitter posts, up from a handful in May, according to an analysis shared with POLITICO by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a think tank that tracks online activity. Coordinated suspension shit is finally being deployed in the service of Kiev’s war effort. NAFO was launched in late May as an online fundraising tool for Ukrainian troops. Anyone who donates money via PayPal (NAFO never touches real cash) to groups like the Georgian Legion, a military unit created immediately after Russia invaded Crimea in 2014, can request the group for their own doge avatar. “This is something we’ve just never seen before,” said Emma Salisbury, a doctoral candidate at Birkbeck University of London who studies Western military tactics. “This organization has just emerged from a very deep, but very specialized, part of the Internet.” Salisbury now decides what type of Shiba Inu avatar she wants before donating. Her preferred choice: “Warrior goddess,” she said.
Gun culture meme
Even replying to a Twitter account whose avatar is “doge” can make a Russian diplomat look foolish | Matt Cardy/Getty Images To delve into NAFO is to witness how online communities from the Islamic State to the far-right boogaloo movement and this ragtag band of online warriors have weaponized internet culture. With the rise of social media, would-be political groups have sought to capitalize on cultural iconography once reserved for online chat rooms in pursuit of recruitment, attention and impact. Jihadists produce slick YouTube clips depicting battles in the Middle East. Western extremists use the ‘Pepe the Frog’ meme to punctuate their online messages. For NAFO, it’s the humble avatar Shiba Inu — a goofy dog breed popularized by Tesla CEO and would-be internet troll Elon Musk and his support of Dogecoin, the cryptocurrency. As the community grew, its members began copying online tactics straight from the Kremlin’s disinformation playbook, sprinkling in a heavy dose of online culture and humor to undermine Russian propaganda. The work is obviously appreciated. On Tuesday, Ukraine’s Defense Minister Reznikov tweeted a “personal greeting to #NAFOfellas” and changed his profile picture to a custom-made avatar of a doge, dressed in a suit, holding a Ukrainian shield and standing in front of a bombed-out bridge. “I would like to thank every single person behind the Shiba Inu cartoon. Your donations to support our defenders, your fight against disinformation are invaluable,” Reznikov wrote. “NAFO expansion is non-negotiable!” For Jamie Cohen, an Internet culture specialist at the City University of New York, NAFO has tapped into the social media culture that is becoming part of people’s everyday lives. Where Russian propaganda remains tightly controlled through the Kremlin-backed media, this group has won the world over because anyone can join, its focus is on humor, and it gives people a positive way to show their support for Ukraine. “This is a real tactical event against a nation state,” he said. “They have a very specific tactic. It’s very simple to do and they have a mascot.”
NAFO 1, Russia 0
Russian influencers have struggled to respond to poorly drawn Shiba Inu memes, YouTube-style viral videos and the power of ordinary social media users debunking Kremlin talking points. Even replying to a Twitter account whose avatar is “doge” can make a Russian diplomat look foolish. Essentially, NAFO can swim in online waters that governments would struggle to enter. Five Western national security officials, nearly all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, welcomed the rise of such pro-Ukraine warriors online. In contrast to the usually colorless official efforts to dispel the Kremlin’s lies, NAFO has tapped into widespread public anger against Russia through references to popular culture and laughter, they added. “Using humor to counter disinformation is a brilliant strategy,” said Jakub Kalenský, senior analyst at the European Center of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats, a joint initiative between NATO countries and the European Union. “One inspiration we should take is that it is possible to fight back. It really is possible to do something – so stop being lazy and trying to make excuses.” One Russian official who has become involved with NAFO is Mikhail Ulyanov, Moscow’s ambassador to international organizations in Vienna and a well-known peddler of Kremlin propaganda through his 30,000 Twitter followers. Since the Kremlin stepped up its attack in February, the Russian diplomat has accused the United States of creating a “ministry of truth”, chided social media users for peddling “fake news” and claimed that Russia invaded Ukraine only as response to Kiev’s aggression. This last statement caught the attention of NAFO. When someone in the movement accused Ulyanov of rewriting history, the Russian responded with a line he would later regret: “You said that nonsense. Not me.” After accumulating more friends, his message became a meme, which was quickly emblazoned on NAFO mugs and T-shirts. Ulyanov first accused his detractors on Twitter of being bots, then went offline for a week after NAFO friends bombarded his social media account.He later said the social media detox was because he was on vacation. “This is a team that has done something. It’s a social media force against Russian propagandists,” said Benjamin Tallis, a senior fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank in Berlin, who secured his own “dogey” avatar after donating to Ukrainian causes. “They could take Ulyanov offline in a week.” Matthew, a former US Marine who uses Twitter @iAmTheWarax and is one of NAFO’s top accounts, is amazed at how far the movement has come since he and other early adopters started posting “dogma” memes early on full text of Putin. invasion of Ukraine. He helps out by running the online forum used to coordinate avatar requests, but tries to keep his involvement separate from his offline life (and declined to give his last name for security reasons). “I thought it was really funny, just the pictures of the little dogs, but also the way it was used to shit on Russian government officials,” he said. “One of the funniest things about the friend character is that if you tweet at one of these Russian government accounts or the sycophants and they reply, now they’re dealing with a cartoon dog.” As alleged Russian interference remains a bogeyman ahead of a series of Western elections between now and 2024, the US military veteran says NAFO is a reminder that Moscow is not the disinformation jihadist many believe it to be. If the Kremlin can’t handle a disorganized mob of “dogmatic” social media accounts, he adds, how can its propaganda machine be taken seriously?
Full time Fella
Camille eats, drinks and breathes NAFO. The 27-year-old Pole (whose last name POLITICO is withholding for security reasons) wakes up at 5 a.m., opens his Twitter account, creates Shiba Inu avatars, sells NAFO merchandise — everything from dog-inspired T-shirts and mugs to sweatshirts and badges — and coordinating an online movement that started by accident. “I never expected to be where I am today,” he said after posting NAFO’s first tweet in late May as part of a fundraising effort for the Georgia Legion. He began flooding Twitter with doge memes, combining them into war shots to mock the Russian military and praise Ukrainian soldiers. When others started donating too, they started messaging him on the social media platform with requests for…
